Circinus, an active galaxy

Resembling a swirling witch's cauldron of glowing vapors, the black hole-powered core of a nearby active galaxy appears in this colorful ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxy is 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus. This galaxy is designated a type 2 Seyfert, a class of mostly spiral galaxies that have compact centres and are believed to contain massive black holes. Seyfert galaxies are themselves part of a larger class of objects called Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). AGNs have the ability to remove gas from the centres of their galaxies by blowing it out into space at phenomenal speeds. Astronomers studying the Circinus Galaxy are seeing evidence of a powerful AGN at the centre of this galaxy as well.